7.
I ended the livestream, thought of the message from someone named Super Lucky Star that I’d received yesterday, and opened the chat.
[Master, could you come to my house? I’m willing to pay five million as your fee.]
When I read the first sentence, I was extremely displeased. What was my standing, and what was this person’s, to think he could order me to come to his house and do work for him?
But when I read the last sentence—well, never mind. This master has a duty to fulfill!
[Address.] I replied briefly.
As if the person had been waiting by the computer, the address came right away: [Villa No. 8, Bích Thuỷ Manor.]
The next day, I took a luxury taxi to Bích Thuỷ Manor and had to pay a whopping two hundred in fare.
When I arrived in front of Villa No. 8, I was stunned by the expansive courtyard, the beautifully designed building, and its lavish decorations.
A middle-aged man in a black suit and gray bow tie greeted me at the entrance. “Hello, Master Qin. I’m the butler here. Our young master isn’t able to come out, so I was sent to welcome you. Please follow me.”
I nodded politely and followed the butler into a Lincoln.
The butler smiled and explained, “The grounds are so large that it would take a while to walk there, so please wait in the car for a moment.”
How pitiful! He even had to ride in a car on his own property. Unlike me—my bedroom was only a few steps from the front door.
“Master Qin, this way!” The butler opened the car door and gestured for me to get out, then led me a short distance to the door of a room.
“Master, our young master’s situation is rather unusual, so he rarely leaves his room. I hope you’ll understand.”
8.
I opened the door and saw that the inside was very plain, a far cry from the lavish decor outside. It contained nothing but essential furniture and everyday necessities.
The corners of the furniture were all padded with genuine leather, and even the walls were completely covered in foam padding.
A man in dark blue pajamas sat on the sofa playing a game and muttering, “Jeez! You guys are useless. Why do I always get stuck with such lousy teammates? Even gaming goes badly for me.”
He angrily tossed his phone aside and turned to look at me. His face was so utterly ordinary that you’d never be able to pick him out of a crowd.
He flashed a radiant smile and greeted me warmly. “Master Qin, you’re finally here! Please, have a seat!”
There was something a little strange about his face. His eyes were clear and lively, and the corners of his eyes turned up—he should have been handsome. How could his face be so ordinary?
I suppressed my doubts and got straight to the point. “Tell me a little about your situation.”
He paused, his ordinary face scrunching up. “Master, my name is Giang Diễn Sơ. I’ve been terribly unlucky since I was little. I’m always tripping when I go out, getting into car accidents when I ride in a car, and choking when I eat. I’ve been to the hospital more than two hundred times in my life. Even during surgery, the equipment would suddenly break for no apparent reason. If my family weren’t rich, I might have died hundreds of times over.”
Generally speaking, rich people aren’t necessarily especially lucky, but they shouldn’t be this unlucky, either. If something like this happened, it could only mean their fate had been altered.
I thought for a moment, then said to Giang Diễn Sơ, “Let me examine your bones.”
Bone-reading is one of China’s five arts, a branch of physiognomy that uses the shape of a person’s bones to determine their character and fate.
Bone-reading dates back to the Northern and Southern Dynasties. Human bones are divided into nine types, each corresponding to a different fate.
I felt Giang Diễn Sơ’s skull and discovered that it had originally been a qilin bone, with a broad forehead and sun horns—a sign of wealth. But it had been changed into a sparrow bone.
People with sparrow bones are usually frail and short-lived, with poor fortunes. Sun horns are faint protrusions on either side of the forehead, shaped like horns.
I lifted Giang Diễn Sơ’s bangs and found a small red mole on his scalp. It was evidence that his fate had been altered.
I rubbed the little mole. Giang Diễn Sơ hesitated, then asked, “Master, is there something wrong with the red mole on my forehead?”
“Huh? You knew you had a mole on your forehead?”
Giang Diễn Sơ gritted his teeth. “So that red mole really is a problem. That means the fortune-telling I had as a child really was wrong.”
I grew interested and couldn’t help asking him, “You had your fortune told when you were little?”
“Because I was so unlucky, my father found a lot of masters for me, but most of them only knew a little bit. When I was six, a feng shui practitioner came to see my father and said she could change my fate. My father thought she was just another fraud and ignored her.”
“But that master said she wouldn’t charge a fee and would only read my fortune because she felt we were destined to meet. So my father agreed to let her do it. Afterward, she left this red mole on the crown of my head. At first, it really did seem to work, but as time went on, I felt even unluckier than before.”
“That master said her skills weren’t good enough and that she wanted to go ask her teacher for help, but she left fifteen years ago and never came back.”
I frowned. “So this master really was up to something. But your fate had already been altered before you met her, so why would she go and do something unnecessary like that?”
Giang Diễn Sơ thought for a moment, then suddenly said, “I get it! There must be a conspiracy behind this!”
“...”
His outburst left me at a loss for words. “Let’s start by undoing this spell.”
This spell wasn’t particularly advanced, but it was quite sinister. What’s more, whoever cast it would suffer a severe backlash once it was broken.
People of the Huyền Môn aren’t taught this kind of magic, so whoever cast it must have been an outsider sorcerer.
I took two drops of blood, dipped the Spirit-Gathering Brush into them, and applied it to the red mole. The mole gradually absorbed the blood and dissolved.
“I’ve broken the fate-altering spell on you, but I don’t know if there are any traces of it elsewhere.”
I lowered my head to look at Giang Diễn Sơ, only to notice his face gradually changing.
His ordinary-looking face gradually became dazzling, like a dust-covered gem finally seeing the sunlight again.
What’s more, his face was looking more and more like Thẩm Triết’s…
Giang Diễn Sơ didn’t notice, but looked a little embarrassed. “Master, why are you looking at me like that?”
I turned away, pointed at the mirror, and said calmly, “Go take a look.”
After I spoke, Giang Diễn Sơ went over to the mirror and cried out, “Ah! Why does my face look like this? Isn’t this Thẩm Triết?”
“This must be what your face originally looked like.”
He rubbed his face hard, looking disbelieving. “Could it be that I’m actually Thẩm Triết?”
I looked at him with mixed feelings and nodded. “The fraud who changed your fate must have gone into hiding too. She may have teamed up with that lynx to switch your luck, which is why you ended up with such an unlucky constitution.”
Giang Diễn Sơ murmured dejectedly, “I thought I was already unlucky. I never expected someone to take my identity and appearance, too.”
I was quiet for a while, then couldn’t help saying, “Maybe you should look at it from another angle. Before your fate was changed, your father was the richest man. After it was changed, your father was still a wealthy man. I’m afraid plenty of people could pray for years and still never get that kind of good fortune.”
Giang Diễn Sơ didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Master, that’s a pretty unusual way to comfort someone.”
9.
I said indifferently, “Although this red mole can also steal your good fortune, its main purpose is to hide your appearance so you wouldn’t realize you were Thẩm Triết. That means there must still be other traces of the fate-altering spell on you.”
Fear showed on Giang Diễn Sơ’s face. He spread his arms in a helpless gesture. “Master, if you’re going to feel my bones, go ahead.”
“…” Why did that sound so weird?
I went behind Giang Diễn Sơ and felt along his spine, eventually noticing something wrong with the seventh vertebra.
The seventh vertebra of a qilin bone should be broad and slope upward, but Giang Diễn Sơ’s was broad and sloped downward—a sign of declining fortune.
I placed my hand on the seventh vertebra and applied a certain amount of force.
“Yipe!” Giang Diễn Sơ gasped in pain.
I let go and began grinding ink. Then I said to Giang Diễn Sơ, “Take off your clothes. I’m going to paint your bones.”
Giang Diễn Sơ’s face turned bright red. He took off his shirt and lay down on the sofa. “Master, how do you paint bones?”
“You’ll find out in a moment.”
I thought for a moment, then began painting along Giang Diễn Sơ’s spine. I painted a vivid red qilin with both forelegs raised, then used the skin-through-bone painting technique to wrap it around him, imprinting it on the skin over his spine. The qilin on his skin gradually faded and disappeared.
This skin-into-bone painting technique can change the shape and direction of a person’s bones, setting a distorted fate right again. And with my reinforcement, no one will be able to change his fate again.
“Master, don’t say anything. This bone-painting really hurts.”
With that, he passed out.
I sat on the sofa watching TV while I waited for Giang Diễn Sơ to wake up.
It wasn’t because I was being kind. He still hadn’t paid me the five million in fees.
People of the Huyền Môn have always cared about cause and effect. Giang Diễn Sơ had a fate marked by wealth and nobility, and I used this fate-altering technique to help him, so fifty thousand wasn’t much.
Meanwhile, the butler came by again. When he saw Giang Diễn Sơ unconscious and naked on the sofa, he paused in surprise, then covered him with a blanket.
Giang Diễn Sơ woke up two hours later and happily paid me.